Shocktober: Last Night in Soho

Last Night in Soho (2021)

After three posts where I struggled to even find anything resembling an interesting angle to write about, I conclude my Shocktober with a movie that overwhelmed me with too many options. Not one to lightly repeat himself, Edgar Wright’s return to the horror genre after Shaun of the Dead was highly anticipated, especially after a pandemic delay. Last Night in Soho was hyped up as a proper spooky story, without the comedy elements Wright was known for, as well as his first film with women as main characters instead of just love interests. Was that too much of a departure for him to handle? Yeah dude.

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Shocktober: Thir13en Ghosts

Thir13en Ghosts (2001)

The 13 Ghosts remake, playfully titled Thir13en Ghosts, is a challenging movie to rate. It’s a tight 90-minutes of campy, extremely 2000s filmmaking. It’s also a horror movie that’s not scary at all, with an objectively dreadful script. So what should I do with that? I guess it’s really all in that title: a silly leetspeak rendering of a cult classic gimmick movie. At the time, I could understand critics ripping into 13 Ghosts. But now? Now it’s a nostalgic link to the days when I would have maybe rented something like this for a sleepover.

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Shocktober: What Lies Beneath

What Lies Beneath (2000)

If you want to know what “blank check” filmmaking is like, look no further than Robert Zemeckis in 1999. In the middle of shooting the cursed Cast Away, they decided to take a long hiatus so that Tom Hanks could lose a bunch of weight and grow his hair and beard all crazy. I don’t know how you’re supposed to spend your break away from a technically-innovative, $90 million-dollar A-list project shot on location on an island in Fiji, but Zemeckis decided to take his crew and shoot another $100 million-dollar movie with even more A-listers. What Lies Beneath is a profoundly Hitchcock-influenced thriller starring Michelle Pfeiffer, that white gold, and Harrison Ford, that grumpy old. Was Zemeckis biting off more than he could chew? You know, I’m not sure.

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Criterion Month Day 30: Weekend

Weekend (2011)

Another year, another Criterion Month, already a fading memory, soft and delicate, like a confessional whispered into a tape recorder. Much like Glen records his subjects speaking of love and intimacy in Andrew Haigh’s subdued romantic drama Weekend. Yet again, I’m saying farewell to Criterion Month with an Andrew Haigh film, despite my ongoing struggle to articulate what it is he does best: people talking.

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Criterion Month Day 29: Infernal Affairs III

Infernal Affairs III (2003)

It’s a cliche at this point but, if you don’t mind indulging me, Infernal Affairs III makes Infernal Affairs II look like Infernal Affairs. Released just a year after the first movie, Infernal Affairs III exists to show fools like me that I had no idea what was *really* going on back when I enjoyed the story that would one day become The Departed. Is dumping this much lore on top of an already dense story a good idea? As a Star Wars fan, I feel confident in saying: eh, sometimes, I guess, but usually no!

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Criterion Month Day 28: Happy Together

Happy Together (1997)

These last few years I’ve been jumping around the World of Wong Kar-wai so I think a little bit of context helps for Happy Together. In 1994, while working on the epic Ashes of Time, Wong took a break and made Chungking Express to clear his head and fall in love with filmmaking again and it ended up being a huge hit and made him an international darling. The next year, he followed that up with the stylistically similar Fallen Angels, which further earned him widespread recognition. Both movies were heavily influenced by the looming handover of Hong Kong to China, so when his next film, Happy Together, was slated to be released just weeks before the handover, everyone expected this would be what it was about. And they were sort of right, it’s just almost entirely set in Buenos Aires.

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Criterion Month Day 25: Executioners

Executioners (1993)

Merely seven months after their first adventure, the heroic trio of Maggie Cheung, Anita Mui, and Michelle Yeoh return Executioners. And if you thought things were bleak before, let me tell you, this one starts with a bang! Nuclear war has poisoned the world and the survivors are forced to grovel at the feet of anyone who can provide clean water. Hong Kong’s president (Kwan Shan) is desperately trying to keep the government on top while a masked, disfigured maniac (Anthony Wong) pulls the strings from the shadows. This is a world that needs heroes more than ever before, so where are they?

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